Michi Path MK1 — part 1: from an inspiration to a speaker of my own

Part 1 of my story about building the Michi Path MK1. The cabinets are currently being made by the cabinetmaker; assembly, crossovers and tuning will follow in later instalments.

I really only wanted to build a pair of speakers. Now there is a substantial handbook, an order with a cabinetmaker and a surprising number of questions that had never occurred to me before.

It was all supposed to be quite simple …

Anyone who spends enough time with HiFi probably knows this problem: you have a system you could be perfectly happy with. And yet, at some point, you start wondering whether there might be just a little more to discover.

Among my speakers are Klipsch Cornwall. I value them enormously and am very happy listening to music through them.

So there is really no sensible reason at all to build new speakers.

Really.

But in the high-end world, satisfaction apparently has a remarkable ability to turn back into curiosity.

And so, some time ago, I embarked on my most elaborate speaker project yet.

From childhood via Le Petit to DeVore

My first experience of speaker building goes back a very long way. As a child, I once built speakers from a kit. What fascinated me most was that a few wooden boards, cables and drivers could eventually produce actual music.

Many years later, I returned to DIY and built the well-known Le Petit, based on a concept by Jean Hiraga.

A comparatively simple speaker design that showed me how much sound quality a carefully considered construction can offer.

Then, at some point, I came across the speakers from DeVore Fidelity, particularly the Orangutan series.

These large, fairly traditional-looking speakers fascinated me. Broad cabinets with a distinctive aesthetic, rather than slender, futuristic columns. Behind them is an approach to sound that places great emphasis on musicality, naturalness and spatial presentation.

The originals also come with a fairly substantial price tag. And, as sometimes happens with these things, you eventually start researching whether you could build something like that yourself.

At first, I got in touch with someone who had already built DeVore-inspired speakers. It was an interesting exchange that made me even more curious about DIY.

Further research eventually led me to the website of Mr Tschaar, who has spent a great deal of time building DeVore-inspired speakers of this kind.

That was where the idea took shape: why not build something like this myself?

What I did not realise then was that my intended recreation would gradually become a rather independent design. And that what seemed a manageable exercise in building a speaker would lead me ever deeper into acoustics and loudspeaker development.

The more I understood, the more complicated it became

At first, I thought the main decisions would be fairly straightforward: which drivers should I use? How large should the cabinet be? Which crossover would suit them?

But every answer brought new questions.

Take the bass-reflex ports, for example. Surely they are just a few openings in a speaker cabinet?

Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple.

What diameter should they have? How long should they be? Where should they go? How does their position affect the speaker’s tuning? And what happens if the finished speaker sits closer to a wall or in a corner?

Suddenly, you find yourself thinking about airflow, resonances, tuning frequencies and the interaction between the speaker and the listening room.

Even the height of the speaker stand matters when the bass-reflex openings point downwards, as they do in my project.

Or take the internal wiring.

Surely you just connect the crossover to the drivers. Two wires to the tweeter, two to the woofer. Done.

But which cable should you use? Does a woofer need a different cable cross-section from a tweeter? How long can the wires be? At what point do resistance and electrical properties become relevant? And is the most expensive cable automatically the best?

The deeper I went, the more often I realised that you need to distinguish technically understandable relationships from the occasionally rather adventurous promises of the high-end world.

The cabinet raised similar questions.

Why does the tweeter’s precise position on the front panel make a difference? How does the width of the baffle affect the sound? What do internal braces change? Where should damping material go, how much makes sense, and why can too much have unwanted effects as well?

Then there is the crossover: a few coils, capacitors and resistors that are supposed to make sure each driver plays the right part of the music.

Sounds manageable.

Until you start looking at crossover frequencies, phase behaviour, impedance and how to make the two drivers work together as seamlessly as possible.

What surprised me particularly was how strongly all these things affect one another.

You change one small detail — and suddenly have to rethink three other things.

The question “How do I recreate this speaker?” gradually became the much more interesting question: “Why is a speaker designed exactly this way — and what happens if I change something?”

And the more I learned, the more I wanted to develop a concept of my own, rather than simply follow an existing set of plans.

Michi Path MK1 — the journey is the point

Eventually, it became clear that I was no longer planning a simple DeVore recreation. I was designing a speaker that increasingly followed my own ideas.

That is why the project now has a name of its own: Michi Path MK1.

“Path” stands for the journey. And it really has been a long one — one that is not even over yet. An initial idea became countless questions, new insights, discarded thoughts and, eventually, my own speaker concept.

The project has now been going on for two years — considerably longer than I originally expected. But once you really get into something, you rarely stop at the first few questions. Every answer brings new ideas, and there is always something you want to understand a little better. That takes time. Apparently, more than I thought back then.

The “MK1” designation prudently leaves room for further development.

Although, after 181 pages of handbook, I hope the first version will sound good enough to last me quite a while.

What I actually want to hear

Before I looked at the technical details, I had to ask myself a different question: what should my ideal speaker sound like?

I am not looking for the maximum amount of bass or spectacular treble.

I want voices that feel natural and have body. A spatial presentation in which instruments are not simply on the left or right, but form a stage with width and depth.

I am fascinated by that almost three-dimensional impression when the music becomes completely detached from the speakers.

I also want controlled, precise bass and clear reproduction that does not become tiring after hours of listening.

At first, that sounds fairly obvious. But achieving exactly that combination is not so easy.

And, above all, it is very personal.

What sounds right to me will not necessarily match someone else’s ideal.

That is why the Michi Path MK1 will not be an exact copy of a DeVore speaker. The original concept was the inspiration. The actual construction now takes its lead from my listening room, my system and my own ideas.

A few technical decisions — and many new questions

The basic concept is a large two-way speaker with a 10-inch SEAS A26RE4 woofer and the T35C002 tweeter.

The cabinet will be about 78 centimetres high, 48 centimetres wide and 36 centimetres deep. So this is not a dainty bookshelf speaker you can discreetly place between two books.

The positioning of the two drivers was particularly important to me. They are deliberately very close together, while the tweeters on the two speakers are arranged with a slight offset.

That reflects my thinking about spatial imaging, sound reflections and the way the two drivers work together.

The bass-reflex system also differs from many conventional designs: the openings point downwards. That makes even the stand, at roughly 14 centimetres high, part of the overall concept.

And then there is the crossover.

To an outsider, it probably just looks like a collection of coils, capacitors and resistors. In reality, it plays a major role in determining how the two drivers work together.

I have chosen a different crossover concept from the one in my original inspiration. The crossovers will also sit outside the cabinets, so that I can modify and tune them more easily later.

What remains with me

The most exciting part is still to come

One thing is certain: the work will not be over when the speakers play for the first time.

That will probably be when the most exciting part begins.

The story continues in part 2 on 21 October 2026: How a few notes turned into a 181-page handbook, what is currently taking shape at the cabinetmaker’s workshop, and why I am documenting this long journey.